The Chinese Automotive Fuel Economy Policy [February 2015 Update] 1.0 Background China has been experiencing unprecedented annual sales growth rates since the beginning of the century. In 2014, vehicle sales in China suppressed 23 million units, marking the country's 6th straight year as the world's largest auto market. Although year-on-year growth has slowed since the economic crisis, annual sales in the past two years surpassed analysts’ predictions. China’s 2nd and 3rd tier markets are rapidly expanding leading to continuous high annual sales growth predictions, maintaining China’s predominant role as world’s largest car market in years to come. Even conservative estimates point to 2020 sales rate of 50 million units per year, which is comparable to total global vehicle sales in 2009, and to a total vehicle market of 550 million by 2050 (CAERC, 2013). Not surprisingly, China has become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and largest vehicle market in terms of annual growth, overtaking the U.S. China's transportation CO2 emissions have doubled from 2000 to 2010 and are projected to increase by a further 50% by 2020. Vehicle emissions are claimed to be responsible for about 31% of city PM2.5 in Beijing, and account for over 40% of city-center air pollution. China has taken action to reduce its road transport greenhouse gas footprint by setting fuel economy regulations, putting in place a tax structure that seeks to give consumers an incentive to purchase more fuel efficient vehicles and limits the use of high-consuming vehicles (since 2006). Since 2005, the country’s rapidly growing new passenger vehicle market has been subject to fuel economy standards, and since 2010 new-energy vehicle adoption is receiving fiscal support. China has also committed itself to the scrapping of all yellow label vehicles, namely vehicles that fail to meet the Euro I emission standard, by 2017. Gasoline vehicle emissions, which have been subject to standards limits, have been increasing in stringency ever since and required to meet Euro V / Guo V standard nationally as of 2018 and be subjected to the official vehicle environmental certification. China has more small cars overall than most other developed or developing countries, but larger cars are taking a larger share of the market. In 2012, vehicles below 1600cc captured over 40% of the private vehicle market and grew by over 6% annually, while 1600-2000cc captured 14% of the market, however grew by 8.37% (over the national average). In 2014 SUVs and Minivans achieved the largest market growth among vehicle segments. China’s driving patterns and average annual distance traveled have received limited research focus to date. However it can be assumed that the average distance traveled by private vehicle owners in China is about 20k km per year, lower than the US average, and decreasing to a 1 projected 13k km by 2050. China’s poor fuel quality, on the other hand, may offset the emissions savings resulted from shorter vehicle distance travel. 1.1 The Chinese Light-Duty Vehicle Fleet Since the turn of the century, China has experienced growth of over 1000% in vehicle stock, with tremendous increase projected to continue throughout coming decades. A study by China Automotive Energy Research Center (CAERC, 2013) predicts that the number of on-road vehicles in China will reach 550 million by 2050. Sales data for calendar year 2014 indicates China’s light vehicle sales are about 19.7 million. This figure includes sales of 7.3 million vans, MPVs and SUVs, while MPVs and SUVs sales increased by 40%. The figure below shows a projection of China’s market share of light duty vehicles. Projected Market Share of Each Vehicle Type (%), China Source: Wang, 2006 2 1.2 Status of LDV fleet fuel consumption/CO2 emissions China’s fuel consumption and emissions are determined by the “New European Driving Cycle”, or NEDC, which is a stylized cycle consisting of 4 repeats of a city cycle with an average speed of 18.7 km/h and a highway cycle of with an average speed of 62.6 km/h and a maximum speed of 120 km/h. There are currently about 27 test grounds in China under the national Vehicle Emission Control Center (VECC) supervision subordinated to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), operationally approved by China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) and providing fuel consumption data certified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). China introduced fuel economy standards for light duty passenger vehicles in September 2004 targeting a fuel consumption of 6.9L/100km by 2015, which translates to an estimated 167g/km of CO2 emissions. The standard was initially outlined in two phases - the first phase rolled out from July 2005 and the second phase from January 2008 (were existing vehicle production started implementation a year after new-vehicle production). Phase 1 (2005) of the fuel economy standard increased the overall passenger vehicle fuel efficiency by approximately 9%, from 12L/100km in 2002 to 11L/100km in 2006, despite increases in gross weight and engine displacement. It is estimated this saved approximately 575,000 tons of oil and 1.7 million tones of CO2 emissions between 2002 and 2006. This has also made Chinese fuel economy standard the 3rd most stringent in the world, behind the EU and Japan. In 2009, the national average fuel consumption stood at 7.78L/100km equivalent to 180.5 CO2g/km, but by 2010 it had risen by 0.6% to 7.83 L/100km, or an equivalent of 181.7CO2 g/km. From the distribution of car models sold in 2009 and 2010, it is evident that the proportion of new cars sold with fuel efficiencies below 8.0 L/100km stood at roughly 70%, but by 2010 this proportion had dropped down to roughly 60%. The change is closely linked to the fact larger engine displacement and high fuel consuming cars are increasing their market share. In 2011, a third phase to the fuel economy standard has been introduced, targeting fuel consumption of 5L/100km by 2020, which translates to an estimated of 120g/km CO2 emissions and adding corporate average fuel consumption target to the original vehicle-based standard. By 2011, the implementation of the first two phases showed successful reduction of some 11.5% in average fuel consumption and resulted emissions. However, there is some concern that the increasing size and mix of China’s vehicle fleet may overwhelm these initial gains. Furthermore, as auto manufacturers are steadily meeting their corporate annual goals, raising concerns over the level of stringency and effectiveness of existing standards (iCET, 2012). 3 2.0 Regulatory Policies 2.1 National Standard China has put a set of fuel economy standards in place. The first two phases of the standards (2004-2012) was unique in the world because there was no corporate averaging allowed in meeting the weight-bin based vehicle limit standard. Every individual car is evaluated against the weight-based standard limit, and the official fuel consumption (FC) figure is determined at the type-approval. There is, however, a separate requirement for corporate average fuel consumption on top of the model-based requirement since the standards’ third phase implemented as of 2012 (namely, the CAFC target), which allows for corporations to average their fleet FC within a specified boundary from the target year (2015 and then 2020) and according to a per-vehicle weight-bin target. China light duty vehicles fuel economy related standards Serial Number Standard Title Issuance Implementatio Comments Date n Date GB/T Vehicle Replaced GB/T 15089-2001 Classification 15089-1994 GB/T Measurement 16/2/2006 1/4/2006 19233-2003 methods of fuel consumption for light duty vehicles GB19578-2004 Fuel consumption 2/9/2004 New vehicles: First of its kind; Governing limits for Phase I from gasoline and diesel fueled passenger cars 1/7/2005 vehicles with minimum Phase II from speed of 50km/h and 1/1/2008; In-use maximum weight of vehicles in the 3500kg following year GB20997-2007 Fuel consumption 1/2/2008 1/1/2011 First of its kind; Governing limits for light gasoline and diesel fueled commercial duty vehicles with curb weight vehicles equal to or above 2000kg which are meant for 4 commercial use GB19233-2008 Measurement 3/2/2008 1/8/2008 Replaced GB19233-2003; methods of fuel Details for the consumption for implementation of light duty vehicles GB19578-2004; Governing gasoline and diesel powered M1, M2, N1 vehicles not exceeding 3500kg GB27999-2011 Fuel consumption 30/12/2011 1/1/2012 Details for the evaluation method implementation of and targets for GB19578-2004; passenger cars Governing gasoline and diesel powered passenger vehicles not exceeding 3500kg GB19578-2014 Fuel consumption 22/12/2014 1/1/2016 Draft for replacing limits for GB19578-2011; passenger cars Governing gasoline and diesel powered passenger vehicles not exceeding 3500kg GB 27999—2014 Fuel consumption 22/12/2014 1/1/2016 Draft for replacing GB evaluation 27999—2011; methods and targets for passenger cars Notes: There are three types standards related to Fuel Economy in China: (1) Testing standards - National standards/”GuoBiao” No.19233, currently two such standards were announced (the 2008 standards replaced the 2003 standard); (2) Fuel consumption limit - National standards/”GuoBiao” No. 19578, currently one such standards (the December 2014 declared standard is meant to replace the 2004 standards); (3) Fuel consumption target standards - National standards/”GuoBiao” No.27999, currently one such standards (the December 2014 declared standard is meant to replace the 2011 standards). Source: compiled by iCET, 2015 update The Chinese government issued its first vehicle fuel consumption related policy in 2004 with the national standard of "Limits of Fuel Consumption for Passenger Cars" (GB 19578-2004), targeting an average fuel consumption of 6.9L/100km by 2015 which translates to CO2 emissions of 167kg/km.